Mohammed Omar

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(Redirected from Mullah Omar)

Mohammed Omar (Arabic: ملا محمد عمر; born 1959) is the reclusive leader of the Taliban of Afghanistan and was Afghanistan's de facto head of state from 1996 to 2001. He has been in hiding since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and is wanted by US authorities for harboring Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaida organization.

For a man who served as the head of state of a nation of 25 million people, remarkably little is known about him. According to Omar, he has never flown on a plane, and has left his native Afghanistan only once, to travel briefly to the tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan. Omar gave few interviews, rarely met with non-Muslims, and there are only a few known pictures of him. Diplomats describe him as shy and untalkative with foreigners.

What little is known is as follows:

He is an ethnic Pashtun. Omar is described as very tall (some say 1.98 m. or 6'6"). He was born the son of a peasant farmer, and grew up in mud huts around the village of Singesar (some reports say Nodeh), near Kandahar. He lost his father when he was young and the responsibility of fending for his family fell on him. He is said to be married, and to have one son.

He is said to have been been a guerilla fighter with the Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami faction of the anti-Soviet mujahideen. He was wounded four times and lost one eye to shrapnel. Taliban lore has it that, upon being wounded by a piece of shrapnel, Omar removed his own eye and sewed the eyelid shut. However, reports from a Red Cross facility near the Pakistan border indicate that Omar was treated there for the injury, where his eye was surgically removed.

It may have been after he was disabled that Omar studied and taught in a madrassah, or Islamic seminary, in the Pakistani border city of Quetta. It is known that he was a mullah with a village madrassah near the Afghan city of Kandahar.

Follwing the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1994, the country fell into anarchy as various mujahideen factions fought for control. Omar came to head a group of fighters known as the Taliban (students). His recruits came from the Qur'anic schools within Afghanistan and in the Afghan refugee camps across the border in Pakistan. They fought for a strict version of Sunni Islam and were initially welcomed by Afghans weary of warlord rule.

The Taliban took over the country remarkably quickly. Some speculate that they received support from the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service, which is known to have an Islamist outlook. In April 1996, Omar took the title Amir al-Mu'minin (أمير المؤمنين, "commander of the faithful". Mullah Omar renamed the Islamic State of Afghanistan the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in October 1997.

However, Omar did not move to Kabul, which has been the capital of Afghanistan for several centuries. Omar ruled from his base in Kandahar.

Under Mullah Omar Taliban authorities enforced a particularly strict version of sharia, or Islamic law. Women were not allowed to work, save in health care, or to attend school. A stringent interpretation of the Islamic dress code, or hijab, was enforced; women were not to leave the house without a burqa. Men were required to grow beards and to avoid Western-style haircuts or dress. Cinemas were closed and music was banned. Theft was punished by the amputation of a hand, rape and murder by public execution. Adulterers were stoned to death. In Kabul, punishments were carried out in front of crowds in the former Kabul soccer stadium.

Omar's interpretation of Islam led him to order the destruction of two large statues of Buddha. The 2000-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan were carved into the cliffs of Bamiyan, in northern Afghanistan, and were generally considered archaeological and historical treasures. In March 2001, Omar declared the statues "un-Islamic" and "idolatrous" and had them destroyed by explosives and artillery fire.

Since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Omar has been hiding in unknown location(s) and is still at large. The United States government is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his capture. He is believed to be in Pakistan, but there is no conclusive proof that he is there. [1]

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